Technical Field
Aspects of the embodiments relate to distribution of medical objects, such as medicines, and more specifically to systems, methods, and modes for distribution of medical objects from a pharmacy or a nursing station to the patient's bedside via pneumatic tubing.
Background Art
The practice of dispensing and delivery of drugs at medical institutions, such as hospitals, is a time consuming process. Medications need to be prepared and transported in a secure environment while ensuring the safety of patients and hospital workers. Typically, in a hospital environment a prescription is written by a medical practitioner that requests the pharmacy to provide a medical object to a patient. Such medical object may include medicine, such as oral, topical, or suppository pharmaceutical drugs, small medical supplies or devices, such as sterile items, thermometers, bandages, dressings, or the like, used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. The prescription is filled by the pharmacy and delivered to a nursing station.
Pneumatic tube systems have been used in hospitals to transport medications from the pharmacy to the nursing station. Pneumatic delivery systems are used extensively for its rapid, efficient, and secure transportation of a wide variety of articles. Such pneumatic tube systems comprise a sending station located at the pharmacy in communication with a plurality of receiving stations located throughout the hospital. To transport an object via conventional pneumatic tubing, the object needs to be first placed within a carrier, which is transported via the pneumatic tubing to a destination by air under either positive or negative pressure created by a blower or a fan. The interior of the closed tube and the outer dimension of the carrier form a seal so that the carrier can be propelled between pneumatic stations. When the doctor prescribes medication, the pharmacy fills the prescription and delivers it inside the carrier to a desired receiving station via the pneumatic tube system.
The nurse at the receiving station must open the carrier and determine to which patient at which location (e.g., a patient room, emergency room (ER), operating room (OR), or phlebotomy room) the nurse needs to deliver the prescription. The medications are sorted at the nursing station for delivery to the patients by nurses responsible for the patient. In many instances, however, the medications get mixed up due to frequent handling by numerous personnel. Constantly opening and closing of carriers may be time consuming. Secure storage at the nursing station may not be available as the medications await delivery by the nurses. Nurses delivering the medications may pick up the wrong medication to deliver. User error may occur during the identification of the room and patient resulting in miss-delivery of the prescription. Additionally, errors may occur as nurses may be delivering a plurality of medications to various rooms.
Accordingly, a need has arisen for systems, methods, and modes for quick and secure distribution of medical objects, such as medicines, from a pharmacy or a nursing station to the patient's bedside via pneumatic tubing that entails minimal amount of handling.